Patna: You can call it a dressing down. Lawmakers and bureaucrats in the state capital may have to do without their crisp, starched and freshly pressed clothes if the demands of Patna's dhobis are not met within 15 days.

The city's washer-men and women on Sunday staging a daylong dharna, threatening to stop washing netas' and babus' clothes indefinitely if dhobis are not assigned a proper designated place to carry out their work.

Some of the dhobis sat at the protest with bundles of clothes that they would have washed on Sunday, while others just stopped work and stayed at home.

"There is no other way out, apart from resorting to a strike," said Ram Bilas Prasad, Patna district washermen's committee general secretary.

"Our main grievance is that we have no proper place or a dhobi ghat in the state capital where we can wash the clothes we collect. The dhobi ghats that do exist are in a dilapidated condition and hazardous to use."

He said that the situation is so dire that dhobis of the city are forced to wash clothes in drains, ponds with dirty water, and other such places.

"Clothes washed in dirty water or drains will look clean, but we feel sad that this is what we are being forced to offer to our customers.

"So we have decided to deprive parliamentarians and legislators, chief minister, ministers and bureaucrats for a day. We visit their homes on a daily basis to collect clothes for washing and ironing," Prasad said.

The washermen's committee has given an ultimatum of 15 days to the politicians and bureaucrats to heed their main demand for designated dhobi ghats in Patna and other parts of the state.

It also said that funds allocated for renovation of these ghats have been lying unused and pointed out that one particular dhobi ghat in the Mandiri area of the state capital has been encroached upon by the police.

A police station is functioning from there.

"If our demands are not met, we will stage another agitation on April 16. If nothing moves, then we will embark on an indefinite agitation. Do not blame us if you see netas in crumpled or dirty clothes or shabbily dressed bureaucrats," Prasad warned.

JDU general secretary and president of the all India washermen's federation, Shyam Rajak, and Bankipur MLA Nitin Navin have supported the dhobis' demands.

The agitators also pointed out that chief minister Nitish Kumar had promised in 2007 to renovate the dhobi ghat located opposite Pant Bhawan off Bailey Road.

However, the washermen pointed out, nothing has happened in the 11 years after that.